Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night
Chapter 263: Willful Ignorance

Blood Crystals? What the fuck were blood crystals? These were the thoughts going through the sentry's head as he stared at a strangely dressed young man. Who had miraculously survived the artillery barrage, and appeared before him not a second after the hit was confirmed.

If he had not seen Zane practically appear out of thin air with his own eyes. Then the sentry would not dare believe it had someone else reported it to him. The town of Hawthorne had been isolated for the last six months. Surviving entirely on its own.

Things were tough without any outside support. There was no doubt about that. After all they weren't exactly in the most arable of land, nor were there any major ranches within the immediate vicinity who they could rely on for food.

But through emergency rationing, and hard fought attempts to grow food they had survived, all the while waiting for the government to come to their aid. The fact of the matter is, the United States just like the world came to a rather rapid end. Within a month, any form of communication with the outside world had ended.

There was no official warning that they were dealing with the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse. Rather from its very inception, until the collapse of the United States and the other world governments. The official story from the federal government was that they were dealing with a national state of unrest caused by rioters.

This was the only news a small town like Hawthorne had received from any official sources, and that was six months ago now. What with it only being a little over half a year since everything had gone to shit.

The residents of Hawthorne had just assumed that the government was fighting a civil war, and that for whatever reason they had been left alone, despite the fact that they were quite literally a town built around an Army munitions depot.

Aside from a few brigands who had travelled down this path of highway, Zane was the first real contact Hawthorne had with the outside world. And it was because of these brigands that the town had adopted a policy of shelling the shit out of anyone who dared approach.

Since the first raid on the town had been successfully repelled. Zane was the only person from the outside world that anyone in the town had spoken to. And… He immediately started by talking about something strange and alien to the residents.

With all of this in mind, the sentry was naturally cautious towards Zane, whose armor and cloak made him look like some kind of fantasy bad guy. And he was quick to point his rifle at Zane and speak to the man in a hostile manner.

"Blood crystals? What the hell are you talking about? Never mind that! How the hell did you get past that bombardment? Answer me now!"

Zane was not afraid of the man's rifle. Even at point blank distance, he could dodge the bullet with ease. His speed was at such a superhuman level after all. Rather, he looked at the sentry in disbelief, and nonchalantly pulled out one of the tier I blood crystals he had left over in his inventory.

After showing it to the man, Zane spoke to him in a calm and callous manner. Educating him on what had been going on in the outside world.

"This is a blood crystal. It can be extracted from the skull of an undead. If consumed by a human, there is a 1/5 chance it will grant you special powers. If not, then it will infect you, and eventually you will become one of them…. How do you not know about this? It's been seven months since the apocalypse began!"

The sentry was so stunned by the shiny red spherical crystal in Zane's hand, and the words that he spoke, that he really didn't know how to react to it all. His first instinct was to call Zane crazy, and that was exactly what he did.

"Blood crystals? Undead? Apocalypse? Are you schizophrenic, boy? You're spouting nonsense right now! Any day now the government will come here demanding to take out munitions to continue the fight against the damn rebels!

And when that day comes you can bet as sure as hell that this civil war will come to a swift end!"

Zane was honestly not expecting such a concoction of pure 100% made up bullshit. Government rescue? Rebels? Civil war? What kind of poorly written direct to DVD script did they think they were currently living in?

Even with Zane's superhuman intellect, it took him a moment to try to connect the dots, if there were any to connect, on how this town misunderstood the objective reality that the world was facing to such an absurd degree?

I mean… Sure, a civil war was definitely more realistic than a zombie apocalypse, and if Zane had not personally witnessed all the things he had seen, and was instead ignorant of what was going on in the world, then maybe yeah he might believe it was a civil war that prevented any supplies from reaching Hawthorne.

But didn't these guys have access to the internet before the world fell apart? Could they not see the ravenous hordes of undead tearing human beings apart in videos that were posted across social media? Back when such a thing still existed?

And Zane was quick to point this out to the man.

"Hold on? How fucking backwards are you people? Did you not have internet, or social media? Did you not see the millions of videos of undead monsters tearing human beings apart? And the spread of the undead virus? It was thoroughly recorded prior to the collapse of the national power grid!"

The truth of the matter was that the residents of Hawthorne had indeed seen the videos. But they chose to believe the government's bullshit cover up of this being a crisis revolving around civil unrest. And that any videos that showed otherwise as pure misinformation.

This was why the man scoffed at Zane's words and mocked him for telling the objective truth.

"Please! Don't give me that crap! The government themselves said such videos were mere disinformation spread by the rioters and rebels to spread panic! You're not going to convince me of that bullshit! I know it's all propaganda!"

Zane had instinctively sighed, and face palmed when he heard this comment. Some people were just simply incapable of seeing the truth for what it was. And would you believe anything the authorities told them no matter how blatantly obvious of a lie it was.

Whether it was the bullshit cover-up story that the white house had come up with in the early days of the apocalypse, or it was the media outlets that were in their pocket, continuing to preach such propaganda. Some people would never believe anything that did not come from those in power. Even if they saw it with their own eyes.

And because of this, Zane no longer felt like arguing with the man, who by now was surrounded by more soldiers. Soldiers who were called upon over the radio to come reinforce the gate.

"Listen, I'm not here for a fight. I'm not even here to trade supplies. I just want to go that way, south to Vegas. I've got shit I need to do there, and this is quite literally just a town that is blocking my way. So, how about you just open up these gates and escort me to the other side, and we can all pretend like this didn't happen?"

The sentry was nervous. He was about to say something when another voice called out from behind him. It was a much older and gruff voice. Clearly from someone with authority over the local militia. And sure enough, a man appeared dressed in an old school Desert Battle Dress Uniform that a soldier would have worn back in the Gulf War.

"No can do sonny, you have information, information about the outside world that we are in desperate need of. Why don't you come with me and we have a little chat? I promise if you answer my questions honestly and to my satisfaction you will be escorted to the southern gate just as you desire…"

As much as Zane had every instinct to tell this man to go fuck himself. He would rather avoid massacring an entire town simply because they were in between him and his destination. And because of this, Zane sighed once more, ultimately agreeing to the man's demands. Albeit with a stern glint in his dark eyes.

"Alright fine… Lead the way… Just know, if you try anything funny, I have the ability to wipe out this entire town by myself…"

This warning only left the man in charge, and the grunts beneath his command bellowing with laughter.

None of them took Zane's words seriously. Which, if they had, could have spared certain individuals a lot of suffering.